


Concerning Tea

by luvsanime02



Series: Communication [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Commitment, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 05:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6410833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy tries to learn more about Edward as he wraps his head around forever. </p>
<p>Third in the Communication series. Set about five years after Interrupted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Concerning Tea

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. That honor belongs to Arakawa Hiromu. I'm making no profit off of this fic.

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**Concerning Tea** by luvsanime02

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Edward Elric was both the easiest and the most difficult person to understand that Roy had ever met. Interestingly, the level of difficulty was primarily determined by what exactly Roy wanted to know about him. For instance, if he wanted to know how Edward was feeling at any given time, Roy didn't even need to ask, and not because Edward was often angry. This was, in fact, not true. Edward was rarely mad at anything or anyone these days.

No, what was really challenging about Edward as a person was figuring out what he was  _thinking_. Ask Edward what he was feeling, if you couldn’t already tell, and he would write you an epic tale, complete with an impromptu stage performance. But to ask Edward what he was thinking about was usually met with a blank look, followed by a carefully-constructed answer. It was, to be honest, quite aggravating.

Roy had never been under the impression that their relationship would only consist of sex. Roy liked Edward far too much as a person, bratty though he could sometimes be, for sex to be the extent of their interactions, no matter how fantastic it usually was. Still, he'd also never expected for them to still find each other appealing five years later. This brought home to Roy, and he was somewhat astonished at its truth, that he had somehow found himself already in a relationship with the person that he was going to spend the rest of his life with.

This revelation had occurred to him one morning several weeks ago, breaking through his not-quite-awake haze and leaving him staring shocked still into the mirror, until Edward had walked in and asked him why he was standing there with his toothbrush dangling from his mouth. Roy hadn't known quite how to vocalize his sudden epiphany, hadn't even known if he should - Edward hadn't done anything to him recently to deserve having his brain broken so early in the morning - and so Roy had simply spit and started shaving.

Now that Roy was consciously thinking about spending the rest of his life with Edward, though, he began noticing that it was rare for Edward to give his opinion on any matter not involving alchemy, unless he was specifically asked first. Once this came to his attention, Roy found himself wanting to ask Edward’s opinion on everything, from the new hospital policy going into effect, to whether he preferred hot or cold tea. These questions hadn't seemed all that important to Roy a month ago. After all, if something actually annoyed Edward, then Roy was usually the first one to hear about it.

All of these unanswered questions baffled and frustrated Roy. Edward was a brilliant young man, definitely a true genius, one of the only people on the planet who had scoffed in the face of Roy's fury instead of flinched, and Roy had no idea how he preferred his tea. Sure, Edward drank whatever was placed in front of him as long as it wasn’t milk, but Roy wanted to know Edward’s actual preferences.

And therein lay the whole problem. Roy knew what kind of person Edward was, but that didn't mean that he knew what Edward liked. If Roy didn't know _that_ , then how was he meant to know what Edward didn't like?

So, Roy started asking. They were walking down the street when Roy spotted a flash of garish red in a clothing store, and his mouth seemed to open of its own accord. "Is red your favorite color, then?"

That blank, assessing look that Roy couldn’t decipher, and then, slowly, an answer. "Not really. It's fine, gets the blood pumping, but I prefer blue." Which was a color that Roy had almost never seen on Edward, compared to the red he'd worn for years, and Roy spent the next several hours wondering why this was so.

"Which would you rather own, a dog or a cat?" he asked randomly, for no reason at all, a few days later at the breakfast table.

Edward's mouth twisted, and Roy, alarmed, wanted to take his question back, but Edward was already answering. "Neither, really. I don't want to own a pet."

"Why not?" Roy asked, after a few minutes' silent deliberation.

A flicker of a glance before Edward shrugged. "Dogs remind me of Nina, and cats are more Al's thing." The answer was given quietly, and Edward didn’t seem upset, but Roy still berated himself for a week for bringing up anything even remotely associated with Shou Tucker and his daughter.

More questions were asked, until one night Roy was getting undressed alone in their bedroom, Edward still clunking around in the bathroom. A sudden thought struck him, and Roy paused while pulling down his pants.

"So," he asked, loud enough for Edward to hear," how  _do_  you like your tea?"

"I don't." A simple answer to a simple question, but it caught Roy by such complete surprise that he stumbled with his pants around his ankles. Edward didn't like tea? Roy hadn't known that, and a sudden feeling of inexplicable panic rose within him.

"Since when haven't you liked tea?" he called back. Maybe it was a recent thing. People's tastes were always evolving, so Roy really shouldn't-

"I've never liked tea," Edward stated flatly. Absurdly, in response, Roy felt like an integral keystone of his soul had just been removed.

"You do love the sex, right?" Roy asked, a little desperately.

Well, that had certainly gotten Edward to stop whatever he'd been doing in the bathroom. Now the man was standing in the doorway to their bedroom looking decidedly confused. "Is this about you being weird and making noise during sex?" Edward asked at last.

Roy spared a brief second of hilarity and embarrassment at the knowledge that Edward thought  _Roy_ was the odd one during sex, but almost immediately he shook his head, not wanting to get into an argument about something that they'd both grown used to years ago. "No, it's not that, I promise. It's just… you'd tell me, wouldn't you? If you didn't enjoy having sex with me, I mean."

Apparently, Roy's weird mood warranted skipping the rest of his bathroom routine altogether, as Edward came inside the bedroom and closed the door. He walked over to stand on the other side of the bed and crossed his arms, frowning lightly. "You're not getting bored with the way we have sex or anything, are you? Because if you honestly want to try something we haven't done yet, just ask."

A longer pause, but no, Roy refused to get sidetracked right now. "I _have_ been asking, lately. Edward, in case you haven't noticed, we've been living together for five years now. Recently, I’ve come to the amazing realization that we might actually be spending the rest of our lives together."

Roy hadn’t meant to just come out and say it like that, but he figured being forced to have this conversation in the first place was enough to warrant startling Edward with this piece of information. Perhaps the other man would join Roy in his irrational panic.

"I knew that already," Edward replied, still visibly confused, and thereby dashing Roy's brief hope of catching the other man off-guard.

"Well then, how is it that you don't see a problem with me not knowing if you enjoy us having sex together or not?" It occurred to Roy that he still wasn't getting his point across clearly. After all, Edward was a literal creature, and for once, Roy's thoughts were not actually about sex. "Edward, haven't you wondered at all why I've been asking you so many unusual questions lately?" he asked instead.

Edward still didn't look like he had a clue what Roy was talking about.  "Like now, you mean?" he asked sarcastically, but turned serious again in the next moment. "No, I thought you were asking me just because." A pause, and then Edward sat down cross-legged on the bed and used his pillow as an impromptu backrest. "Okay, apparently it wasn't that. So, why have you been asking me all of those questions lately?"

"Because I don't know the answers," Roy said plainly. "I've known you for almost half of your life, Edward, and I had no idea until a few moments ago that you didn't like tea. Do you know how many times I've given you tea over the years?"

"Two thousand five hundred and seventy-three," came the prompt reply. Roy's whole brain blinked. For an entire minute, he couldn't even produce any words inside of his head, let alone say anything out loud.

"And did it ever occur to you once in those two thousand five hundred and seventy-three times to tell me that you didn't like tea?" Roy asked, a little disconcerted now. "Is it any wonder that I'm asking you these things, that I feel bad for not asking them years ago?"

Now it was Edward's turn to blink. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. "So, this is about you being worried that maybe I don't want to be in a relationship with you, but that I'm still here anyways because I don't know how to speak up about my feelings-"

"Thoughts," Roy interrupted quickly. "You're actually quite clear about your feelings." He swallowed. "And no, that's not quite-" He took a deep breath, and decided that Edward would probably appreciate him being blunt. "Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me, Edward? Because I want to with you, and I've never wanted that before."

He shut up then, because Edward was pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. Roy supposed he should appreciate the other man's restraint, as he had yet to visibly roll his eyes. "Sometimes, you can be such an idiot," Edward said.

Well, Roy had known that he'd studied brutal bluntness from a master, but that still rankled him a bit. Edward reached over with his hand and laced their fingers together. Staring down at them, he said, "I've known we were going to be together forever since about a month after we started dating."

Roy was understandably incredulous. "How?" he asked, genuinely curious. 'This is what you get,' his brain notified him almost gleefully, 'for falling in love with a genius.' Yes, Roy really should have realized by now that Edward would always figure out the important things ahead of him.

Edward's fingers squeezed his. "Do you remember the first time you did this?" he asked, indicating their hands. Surprisingly, the recollection didn't take more than a few seconds to recall.

The first time Roy had taken their hands and wound their fingers together, Edward had stopped walking in the middle of his hallway to stare down at the entwined appendages, his eyes lighting up like Roy had just solved the secret as to why ice cream tasted so good while milk itself was so vile. Roy would have untangled their hands and apologized, except that Edward hadn't looked mad, just utterly and deeply shocked to his core, as though the world itself had finally deigned to make sense. As though Roy had made Edward's world make sense. Roy had remembered to breathe again only when Edward had resumed walking forward.

Currently, Edward was looking at Roy like he was the world's biggest idiot, which he supposed was only fair considering that he felt like it. He looked down at their entwined hands again, seeing them in a whole different light now. "Why didn't you ever say anything?" Roy asked.

The look he got in return was amused. "I thought you knew, actually. You know, since you've been in more relationships than me and all." Ouch. Yet, how could Roy have known?

Roy snorted. "What, you see someone else living here?" he asked pointedly. "Edward, I have no more experience with forever than you do. Less actually, I would imagine."

Edward shook his head but didn't reply, which Roy knew meant that he was conceding the point. A rarity for the man, but Roy thought that he'd earned the reprieve. Impulsively, he leaned over and kissed Edward, wrinkling his nose as he discovered that Edward hadn't had an opportunity to brush his teeth before getting sidetracked by Roy's lunacy. Still, as he pulled back slowly, satisfied, Roy found that now he really only had one question left for Edward.

"So, why  _didn't_  you ever just tell me that you hated tea?"


End file.
